Thursday, August 30, 2007

Current TV, who was there last year, is back again this year with TV Free Burning Man,
uploading videos from the playa (some in real time) and streaming
Saturday night’s burning of the man during a live hour long broadcast.

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Sign the petition at WhentheSaints.org and urge the Senate to pass Senator Dodd's Gulf Coast Recovery Act of 2007 (S1668) to assist the Gulf Coast region rebuild. Two years after disaster struck, is long past time.

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

When I hit my recent Fb milestone, I ran as many of the analytics apps as I could find, hoping to gain some profound a-has. Once a quant geek, always a quant geek.

Instead of some glorious insight into techno-utopia, I have stared at one big o-shit for the last week or so:

I've tried framing this in the context of online or Fb demographics, tried looking at other profiles of people I admire, even tried a last-ditch "pack the court" campaign to "even things out". The reality is that calling this "A fine balance of the sexes" is a bit like calling my home state a place where human life is valued.

The truth is that online - just as off-line - I am a 43 year-old privileged sexist racist homophobic Anglo married man. It is not enough to be a sensitive new age guy, not enough to invite "them" to your table, not enough to compensate or even over-compensate. I perpetuate a system that marginalizes people not like me. By my actions, I place myself inside, with power - and those not like me outside, without power. Period. Hard stop.

I have had only 1 significant experience in being the outsider, being on the other side of privilege. I sucked at this - I attacked, I pulled rank, I beat up others and myself - I cried out over & over again "Don't you know who I am ?" It was painful being the other, the outsider - and the reality was, that in this case, I was living in tension, not even anything approaching balance (whatever that it is).

"One of the most curious characteristics of human beings
- particularly westerners - is that pain and inconvenience stimulate
their vitality far more than pleasure. In a very precise sense of the
word, human beings are spoilt. A spoilt child is one who has come to
expect certain privileges and accepts them as rights. He is not
grateful for these privileges; in fact, they bore him. The only time he
feels strongly about them is when they are curtailed; then he sulks.
All human beings take their happiness for granted, and only question
life when they are in pain." - Colin WilsonBeyond the Outsider

Even though the context is Fb, something seen as far away from the "real world", I seek environments that perpetuate me and those like me having privilege, forcing all others to the outside. I certainly take this for granted - I am without a doubt spoilt.

Saturday, August 25, 2007

Jonny & Jenny Baker are two of the most generative folks on the planet in terms of Alternative Worship. They have published phenomenal books, curated incredible experiences and fostered creativity among countless worship creators around the world. You can take in much of their work, and those of their many friends, at the new proost web site which is now up and running!

Of particular interest is UNUSUAL SUSPECTS, a new project to spur and support endeavors by folks under the age of 25.